By Barbra Murray, Contributing Editor click link or picture to visit original story from CPexecutive.com

The German retail market continues to catch the attention of investors from all over the world, and TIAA-CREF is no exception. In a joint venture with German shopping center developer mfi Management fur Immobilien AG, the pension fund snapped up Gropius Passagen, a 1 million-square-foot property that carries the distinction of being the largest shopping center in Berlin. The partners took the premier asset off the hands of H.F.S. Immobilienfonds Deutschland 11 GmbH & Co. KG in a transaction valued at approximately $446.5 million. (ca £277m)

Gropius Passagen has it all. The shopping center boasts a premier location in a densely populated area that will soon be home to the Berlin-Brandenburg International Airport. The asset also features a direct connection to a U-Bahn train station and 2,000 parking spaces. The shopping center’s prime location and convenient accessibility are merely complements to the biggest draw — the diverse group of 150 popular shops.

“Gropius Passagen reflects TIAA-CREF’s ongoing strategy to develop a diversified real estate portfolio, including high-quality dominant shopping centers in markets benefiting from strong catchment areas,” said Aymeric Thibord, director of real estate investment with TIAA-CREF Asset Management UK Ltd. “We believe Gropius Passagen’s robust tenant mix and track record and Germany’s strong economic position within the eurozone, when paired with TIAA-CREF and mfi’s active management, will help create value for our clients over the long term.”

The Berlin shopping center was not a German first for TIAA-CREF’s. Just four months ago, the pension fund closed its approximately $536.8 million purchase of Perlach Einkaufs Passagen, more commonly known as PEP, from RREEF Investment GmbH, thereby increasing its retail presence in the country by 650,000 square feet. And TIAA-CREF’s fondness for the country is hardly new. It is owner of the 323,000-square-foot Erlangen Arcaden, a five-year-old shopping center in Erlangen that the pension fund developed with mfi, which manages the property.

There’s something about Germany, specifically, retail in Germany. In 2011, retail assets closely trailed office assets as investors’ favorite property type, accounting for 37 percent of transaction volume, according to commercial real estate services firm CBRE Group. Furthermore, shopping centers topped the retail list, with investments totaling nearly $6.2 billion.

click link or picture to visit original story from CPexecutive.com

Yet more evidence that the Berlin property market is the place to be, and this is not even our video!!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Property worth around €8.5 billion found new owners in Berlin last year (2010) in fgurest to be confirmed by the City’s Committee on real Estate Assest, the previous year (2009) the sum was 6.5€ billion.

Completion transactions on dewllings saw the biggest rise of 53% to some €2.9 billion, with prices rising from €680 m2 to €730 m2, apartment transactions saw a 30% increase to a total of 16,764 apartments, but that represents less than 1% of the total apartments in Berlin, which is perhaps why prices are rising overall in Berlin.

Prices in Mitte & Prenzlauer Berg saw rises of around 20% and 10% in Kreuzberg.

The UK’s largest property portal for overseas property web ‘Rightmove Overseas’ reported a 50% rise in searches for German property last month, perhaps generated by the increase press coverage on Berlin and it’s property.

March 2011. Aberdeen plans triple German property fund launch

Aberdeen Immobilien is planning to launch three institutional property funds as the outlook for the German real estate sector begins to improve.

The German firm’s managing director Hartmut Leser says there is a ‘very high probability’ the funds will be launched in the next couple of months as market sentiment seems to be improving, with the option of launching a maximum of five funds.

Over the last few months Leser said he has been in touch with many institutional clients and has been encouraged by their feedback.

‘I think that most institutional investors are quite positive on the outlook for the European property, especially when it comes to Germany,’ said Leser.

Two of the planned funds will be focused on the pan European property sector, mainly offices and retail units, while the third fund will focus on the German residential market.

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News this week German insurance giant Allianz reports Q4 2010 showed an increase of 11% in profits, partly due to increased income from property, and from Germany’s Bundesbank that Germany has bucked the European trend of falling prices and actually seen prices rise, it’s reported that apartment prices in some cities have risen as much as 5% in 2010, as reported in the Financial Times, one of the reasons given in the rise in the monthly report for February 2011 were pretty good fixed 10 year interest rates of as low as 3.6% in some cases, with interest rate rises inevitable at some point that’s going to have an effect on 2100 prices…that’s all well for owner occupiers of apartment but what about investors with buy to let’s?

These investors fall into two camps, firstly people who have purchased single apartments as buy to let investment with a single source of income from the property so little scope to optimize the rent, the second is more the professional investor who has purchased a building full of apartments, that’s a very different opportunity, with multi apartments in a building there is plenty of scope to optimize the potential of a building, the report compares 2005 as it’s datum to current values in 2011, so how do buildings compare to single apartments?

A building of say 20 apartments in 2005 in Neukolln would have had tenants renting for between €3m2 and €5m2 so an average of about €4m2, 20110 is a very different picture, trendy Neukolln has rents of more like €6m2 – €10m2 on average for a good apartment being about €8m2 so double in 6 years, and in terms of property price increases that’s obviously had an impact, although it’s still possible to source buildings with rents around €5m as tenants who have been in a property for say 10 or more years will be paying about half the current open market rental value or less.

So it’s not only owner occupier properties that have increased in value in Berlin, and with banks still happy to lend up to 85% of the purchase price of a property to overseas investors, with net yields in the 8% range, loans with 10 years fixed rates it’s a very stable and safe city to invest in, tenants even pay all the service charges for a building you purchase, worth peeping over the wall from the West to check out the East side of Berlin’s vibrant property market.

John Aitken

Just days before the start of his tour of Germany, singer and “Baywatch” and “Knight Rider” star David Hasselhoff says he would like to establish roots in the country, possibly buying property on an estate that shares his name. (click here for original story on Spiegel.de)

The Hof is back, is he buying property in Germany?

David Hasselhoff arrived in Germany this week in preparation for a much-anticipated concert tour across a country where he is a figure who has long been associated, for good or for bad, with the fall of the Berlin Wall. During this visit, though, the “Baywatch” and “Knight Rider” star has said he would like to purchase a patch of land on the “Hasselhof” country estate in the western state of Hesse. It would enable the star to receive his mail at “David Hasselhoff c/o Hasselhof.”

“I hope to visit the village during my German tour” the singer told news agency DPA. Hermann-Josef Kaiser, the owner of the Hasselhof estate, told DPA he hasn’t been informed of any planned visit — nor did he appear to be taking the suggestion very seriously. But in what appeared to be a polite brush off, he suggested Hasselhoff’s “management should get in touch with me and set up a meeting.”

Hasselhoff, who had great success in Germany in the 1980s and 1990s as an actor and singer, particularly with a memorable concert at the Berlin Wall on New Year’s Eve 1989, has long expressed his affection for the country. Last August, Hasselhoff’s search for his German roots paid off when he found, with the help of the TV station RTL, relatives in the tiny village of Völkerson, near Bremen.

“I now know that my ancestors come from Völkerson near Bremen,” he told DPA. “I was in the village last year and there are actually people there who are called Hasselhoff and who are related to me. I even found the house that my great-great grandfather lives in. I believe he migrated to America around 1865.”

‘A 20-Year Journey of My Music’

Hasselhoff told DPA that when he kicks off his tour on Friday, German history would also be part of the show. In one part of the production, “20 years of the Hoff,” Hasselhoff said, “beginning in 1989 at the Berlin Wall, I will take the audience through a 20-year journey of my music.”

Outside of the German-speaking countries, Hasselhoff has had limited success as a pop star. When asked by DPA why his success has been so much greater as a singer here, he said: “Someone told me that I am famous as the American who sings German songs. My songs sound a little bit like ‘Schlager’ (a form of sentimental German pop and folk music that many compare to country music). When people listen to them, then they instantly know that they somehow come from Germany.”

As posters advertising the concerts note, Hasselhoff won’t be alone when he returns to the German stage this week: “His legendary car K.I.T.T. will also be there.”

Germany overtook the U.K. as the most-favored investment location in Europe for unlisted real estate funds as the recovery of its economy, the continent’s largest, made offices and retail properties more attractive.

The U.K. fell to fourth place behind Germany, France and the Nordic region, according to an annual report by the European Association for Investors in Non-Listed Real Estate Vehicles. Inrev. as the association is known, surveyed investors and fund managers overseeing 981 billion euros ($1.3 trillion) of assets.

“This is a dramatic change in sentiment,” said Lonneke Loewik, the head of research at Amsterdam-based Inrev, in a statement today. “Investors seem wary of higher property prices and a slower economic recovery in the U.K., but attracted by growing confidence in the German and other European markets.”

Germany’s economy grew a record 3.6 percent last year as a surge in exports to Asia prompted companies to increase investment and hire more people, giving consumers more confidence to shop. Retail real estate in Germany was the most favored type of property among investors, while office buildings were the third most popular, the survey showed.

The U.K. was the first-choice destination in Europe for investors in the past two years as the weaker pound lured overseas buyers, according to Inrev. Prices for the most desirable properties climbed to levels last seen in 2007.

Since July 2009, U.K. commercial real estate has appreciated by an average of 15 percent, Investment Property Databank Ltd. estimates. Last year’s 6.9 percent gain was the first increase in four years.

London attracted the most investment globally in 2010. Property sales totaled 13.3 billion pounds ($21 billion), 16 percent more than in 2009, Cushman & Wakefield Inc. estimated, citing Real Capital Analytics Inc. data. The city beat Tokyo and Paris.

Ballymore moves closer to realising Berlin theatre plan

DEREK SCALLY in Berlin and BARRY O’HALLORAN

IRISH PROPERTY developer Ballymore has cleared an important obstacle to realising a €500 million redevelopment in Berlin yesterday that involves the controversial demolition of two historic theatres.

A referendum yesterday to save two theatres on Berlin’s Kurfürstendamm failed to meet the necessary quorum of 15 per cent of voters. Just 13.68 per cent of eligible voters in the borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf cast their vote, of which 90 per cent were in favour of retaining the 1920s theatres.

The Irish property group spent more than €200 million on the failing “Kudamm Karree”, shopping centre in 2007 but its redevelopment plans have been mired in controversy because of the theatre demolition.

After yesterday’s vote Ballymore said it was confident of gaining approval for its redevelopment plan by British architect David Chipperfield, which will see a new €35 million theatre on the roof of the complex.

“After three years of opposition, Ballymore is now free to develop this site,” said Mr Paul Keogh, Ballymore group director. “This is a great result for both Ballymore and the Kudamm. We will now move on with our planning process and we expect to be starting development in early 2012.” The redevelopment is expected to take five years.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that the group is to transfer 72.5 per cent of its redevelopment of the old London Arena on the city’s Baltimore Wharf to Royal Bank of Scotland and a group of bondholders in a debt-for-equity swap.

Ballymore owes the bank and bondholders £265 million (€314 million), which is secured against the mixed-use scheme in London’s docklands, which is worth a total of £296 million.

Company documents filed by one of the Irish group’s British businesses, Ballymore (London Arena) Ltd, state that it is close to agreeing a deal on the debt with the bank and bondholders, that will involve the transfer of equity in the development to the lenders.

“If successfully concluded, the bank lenders will take an equity stake in the company in return for continued support, with the bondholders’ debt and accrued interest being converted into equity,” the documents state.

It adds that it is expected the company will become a 27.5 per cent associate of the group when it files accounts for 2011.

Ballymore has about £1.1 billion of debts due for repayment before April, and has already refinanced £172 million of this.

click picture or here Nilreb.com to read the full story in the Indpendent.

Berlin’s latest hotel “nhow” opened its doors this month, promising to add a rock and rock twist to the city’s accommodation choices.

The 304-room property has been designed to cater to Berlin’s renowned creative class, boasting a futuristic design and extras that range from exhibition spaces to digital suites.

As the only hotel in Europe to boast two music studios, it’s difficult to tell exactly to whom nhow is trying to appeal – experience-seeking visitors or music-obsessed locals?

High above the roofs of Germany’s capital, the studios certainly appeal to professionals, featuring state-of-the-art recording equipment and managed by Lautstark, which also runs Berlin’s legendary Hansa studios.

Both the lobby and outside area are also kitted out for artists, providing a space which showcases local and international exhibits for those passing the hotel, located in the heart of the city’s creative district.

However, nhow pains to point out that all this creativity doesn’t come at the expense of functionality – its rooms and suites have been created by celebrity designer Karim Rashid and include some unique features such as televisions that disappear into mirrored surfaces and bathroom walls constructed from one-way tinted glass.

For luxury-loving guests, the hotel’s 260 square meter suite offers its own roof terrace and digital link to the music studios, enabling celebrity visitors to record without leaving their room, if they desire.

click picture or here Nilreb.com to read the full story in the Indpendent.

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